


Heaven

by BastardSirius



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, post-OotP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-15
Updated: 2017-01-15
Packaged: 2018-09-17 15:49:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9332231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BastardSirius/pseuds/BastardSirius
Summary: Remus goes to inscribe Sirius' gravestone.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The last part is copy/pasted from my other fic We Made a Pact. I see these two in the same universe so it works, I think.

_**And no I never really thought about it,**_   _ **n** **o I never really thought about it**_  
_**Stopped me dead in my tracks, as it hit me for the first time**_  
_**Yes I'm broke, thinking what if we never meet again and I froze**_  
_**What if heaven doesn't let me in?**_

_Tell Me It's Real - Seafret_

 

Sirius didn’t get a funeral. There was no body to bury and his tombstone was put next to James’ unceremoniously. It was impractical to have one and Remus had not expected a funeral. He had been the first one to suggest it, but Molly’s deep sigh confirmed that it had been on everybody’s mind.

It had been Charlie Weasley who had gone with him to inscribe the tombstone. They had ordered a blank one, unable to give details. And Remus was there to chisel words and dates onto it. Running an errand. Charlie had joined him because he was the only one at the Order Headquarters at the time and “bored,” according to himself. Remus had not objected to the company. “In and out, just a quick errand,” he had told Charlie and himself.

He thought having company might stop him from breaking down, but it didn’t. He broke down as much as Remus Lupin did in the presence of others. He sat down next to the stone and put his head on it, crying quietly.

The Weasley boy sat down next to Remus, legs sprawled to the left carelessly, with the easy grace of a reckless young man. The werewolf hadn’t registered the presence until he put a hand on Remus’ shoulder.

“He was a good man.”

“He was,” Remus agreed, voice shaking less than he would have thought. Good.

They listened to the faraway voices of people in the distance and the soft breeze moving the tree leaves for a few minutes. Remus was stroking the marble now as if it were a pet. His tears seemed to dry up - at least for now - and he sighed, taking his hand away from the stone to grab his wand. He glanced at James and Lily’s gravestone and waved his wand, the marble on Sirius’ stone chipping away to form words and numbers. He paused, when he was done, and looked at his friends’ graves again. James and Lily had an inscription. It seemed appropriate that Sirius should, too.

He almost laughed at the absurdity. He got up and kept staring between the stones. Should it be a quote? Should it be words of love and devotion? Should it be praise? Would it be something said _to_ Sirius or people who might visit the grave? What does one write on their lover’s gravestone?

In the end, he settled on simplicity. The sentence ‘In perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale’ got carved out of the cold stone as the werewolf waved his wand around.

“What does that mean?” Charlie asked. Remus had forgotten for a moment that he was not alone, and was startled. His senses which had never let any of the Marauder boys sneak up on him in the past were dulled by distraction and desperation.

“‘For ever, brother, hail and farewell’. It’s a quote by Catullus.” He paused. “It seemed appropriate,” he added apologetically. He felt quite silly being here, doing this. Of course had millions of thoughts in his head, things to tell Sirius or _to_ others _about_ Sirius. None of them were things he wanted to write on a piece of stone, and they would not have been appropriate even if he had.

Charlie nodded. “Appropriate,” he agreed.

Remus moved closer to the stone again, and leaned down ever so slightly to touch the edge of it. “He was suffering,” he said but the comfort in the words was for himself, nobody else. The fact that he was saying the words out loud was merely an attempt to make them feel more real.

“Don’t hex me for being so cliche’,” the red-head started, ducking his head as if expecting a blow, “But he really _is_ in a better place. He hated that bloody house.”

“He did,” Remus said curtly. He had had dozens of opportunities to get Sirius out of there. They should have ignored Dumbledore and left. Guilt threatened to flood him once more, but he found that he was too numb at the moment to cry again. He was sure that particular thought would come to haunt him one more with full force soon.

“Now he’s with James and Lily, in heaven,” Charlie said soothingly and tilting his head towards the two lovers’ graves.

“Heaven,” Remus repeated as if it were a word he had heard for the first time. His eyebrows furrowed.

“Or whatever you call it,” the younger man said and shrugged. “Most of the people I talk to call it that. Mum calls it ‘after life’. Where non-ghosts go.” He hesitated before deciding to go for a joke. “The good dogs, anyway.”

“Do dogs go to heaven?” Remus asked unexpectedly.

“Sorry. Foot in mouth. I was trying to make a joke.” When the older man didn’t respond, he continued his spluttering. “You— You know, because his Animagus was a dog.”

“I know,” Remus said and was actually smiling at Charlie which made him more embarrassed somehow. “I still wonder if dogs go to heaven.”

“I think so,” the red-head said, nodding, “I don’t see why not. I mean, if Fudge has the chance, so should pets. Hermione’s cat is smarter than Fudge by a Quidditch pitch.”

Remus smiled, looking into the distance, at something that wasn’t there. Charlie assumed he was smiling at a memory, either of Crookshanks or Black.

They left shortly after.

The werewolf spent the next few days thinking over what Charlie had said. Heaven. Of course he had thought of it for James and Lily. But for some reason, as his friends went through its presumably pearl doors one by one, he had not thought about himself. Now that he was the last and all his deeply loved ones were gone save for Harry, he wondered what would happen to him.

So he drank as often as he could. He made good use of the Grimmauld cellars whenever he could be sure he would not be needed for the next day. If anybody noticed, they did not comment or react in any way. Not that Remus would have cared.

Until Harry was brought into the Headquarters by Dumbledore. Remus had not been expecting company at all that week, and struggled to compose himself when Harry entered the study where he usually lingered. Dumbledore must have told Harry that he was here. _Stupid old man_ , he thought to himself, _I don’t need company._

“Professor Lupin?” Harry called, voice unsure, looking at the back of his old Professor’s head.

After taking a short but deep breath, Remus turned around. “Hello Harry,” he said, hoping his smile didn’t look quite as drunk as he felt, “I do wish you would call me Remus or Moony.”

The teenager’s cheeks reddened but he smiled. “How are you doing, Moony?” he asked with James’ grin as the took confident steps forward even when in his mind he must be hesitant.

 _James,_ Remus thought.

Remus’ drunk mind could not keep itself together at the sight.

His smile disappeared and he put his head in his hands. Harry stood by him, unsure how to proceed when he saw the werewolf’s body start shaking with silent sobs. As Remus’ shoulders shook, Harry put an instinctive hand on one of them.

“Moony?”

Remus raised his head with the gasp of a man struggling to breathe.

“On second thought, maybe not ‘Moony’,” he said sheepishly, tears rolling down his cheek and voice hoarse from the crying and alcohol. Now that he was close, Harry could see how swollen his eyes were.

“I’m sorry,” not-James said, and he looked it.

_‘I’m sorry Moony,’ said the James in Remus’ mind. A sight he had seen quite a few times in their years at Hogwarts when a prank or plan went awry, or if one of them got detention on a full moon night._

“Not your fault at all,” he replied, and tried to give the boy a smile again.

“What’s wrong?”

_‘Something on your mind, Moony? Do I need to hex a Slytherin or two?’_

“Is it Sirius?”

_‘Is it Sirius? If he’s being a jealous berk again just let me know, I’ll sort him out.’_

“In a way,” Remus replied at last after a long silence that he was sure Harry must have thought of as awkward. He didn’t feel awkward. He felt empty.

Harry didn’t know how to reply, so he pulled up a chair and sat next to Remus wordlessly.

“I miss him,” the werewolf offered as a reply to sate the boy’s curiosity. That should explain things, he supposed.

“Me too,” not-James said, eyebrows furrowed and pursed his lips momentarily afterwards, as if he were about to cry too. “He didn’t deserve to die,” he continued with a shaky voice.

Even in his inebriated state the werewolf knew that tone. “It was _not_ your fault,” he said with more anger in his voice than intended.

Taken aback, Harry blinked a few times before turning his gaze away. He shrugged. “He still didn’t deserve it. He had already suffered so much. Then he was stuck _here_ …” His voice trailed off. He could have continued, but they both knew how the man had suffered.

“Do you believe in heaven?” Remus heard himself ask, and would have scolded himself internally for bringing the subject up if he had had his mental faculties intact.

“I believe…” the teenager started, then paused to think. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with two fingers, tilting his glasses as he did so.

_James, in Remus’ head, did the same. ‘I cannot figure this damn charm out. Why won’t it just take each of our handwritings? I don’t want this damn cursive.’_

“There are ghosts, and old magic lingers, too. There must be more to us than flesh,” he said in the end, looking at his body when he said the word ‘flesh’.

“And heaven? Hell?”

 _Drop the subject_ , Remus thought to himself.

“I hope so.”

“I don’t,” Remus said, the tears that had stopped starting again to roll from his cheeks. “I hope there is no hell.”

Not-James looked panicked.

“Why would you be scared of that, Professor? Sirius wouldn’t go to hell even if it exists.”

_‘Moony they won’t expel you or — or try you, right? It wasn’t your fault.’_

“I know he’s in heaven, if there is one,” Remus agreed. “He was so _good_ Harry,” he continued, making sure he said Harry’s name. _Harry, you’re in the room with Harry, not James._ “You don’t understand. His heart was — He was like a character out of a book. Yes, when they were young we did stupid things as many teenagers do but deep down Sirius and James had such a sense of right and wrong. I used to joke about their moral compasses being Confunded but I always knew that they were _good_. No other word for it.

“They were seventeen and they were thinking of fighting the fight already before Dumbledore even approached us. It came naturally to them, it was in their very essence, goodness. Of course they would die to fight in a war that targeted literally anybody that was not them, two purebloods. They had to defend innocent people.

“If there is a heaven, they are there, laughing and joking and — ” He turned to Harry with a broken smile. “And looking over you. Worrying every time you are in danger, and cheering every time you overcome it.” He looked away again, at the books on the shelves.

“And I… I’m a dark creature. What heaven would have me? I’ve never met a werewolf or vampire ghost. Do dark creatures even have souls to be saved or damned?” His voice shook at the end of his sentence. He started heaving. He would have been embarrassed — he should have been — but he wasn’t. “Oh Merlin not seeing him ever again… Not seeing James or Lily… It hurts more than I could explain.”

“You are not a ‘dark creature’, Remus,” Harry said, voice oddly devoid of sadness. He sounded more angry than anything else.

_‘You are not a dark creature, Remus,’ James scolded him and hit him playfully on the head with the parchment in his hand, ‘You just have a furry little problem.’_

“There are quite a few books and studies — libraries’ worth, in fact — that say otherwise,” he replied bitterly, but his mouth twitched into a small smile regardless. Harry lacked all the prejudices of the wizarding world. Even those of the muggle world, from what Remus could tell. He would have loved this boy even if he had not been his brother’s son.

“‘Dark creature’ is just something wizards have decided to call werewolves and some other beings,” Harry continued, sounding like Hermione. “It doesn’t mean anything. I call this,” he said,  picking up a quill, “A ‘quill’. But that’s not what they call it in Russia. Is it really a quill, then?”

“I appreciate the thought, Harry,” Remus whispered, “But I’m afraid it’s more than a difference in language. Werewolves are creatures of the night. Murderous. Killing is in every single one’s nature.”

“I cannot imagine a heaven that would not take you,” Harry said. Not arguing, simply stating a fact. “But you have to live first, before it comes to that.”

The werewolf closed his eyes and smiled. Dumbledore must have briefed the boy indeed. Of course he would know, who could ever hide anything from that man?

He promised himself he would try. He would try to be alive again for James’ son.

“Good point, Harry,” he said, trying to sound cheerful and waving his wand quickly to dry off his face, “Five points to Gryffindor.”

“A bit stingy with the points, Professor,” Harry said with a smirk.

_‘You should take ten points from Slytherin for Snivelly’s ugly sight hurting our eyes,’ James smirked, pointing at Remus’ Prefect badge with his head._

~

“Moony!”

“He hasn’t been dead a minute, Padfoot, let the man have a moment,” James said, laughing.

_James._

“You’ve always been this way, Sirius. But I think that’s why he liked you. Complete opposites.” Remus could hear the smile in Lily’s voice.

Remus opened his eyes and closed them again instantly as he was surrounded by bright lights. He opened his eyelids again slowly, and now the room he was in was at a more manageable brightness. He looked around him and saw James, Lily and Sirius who was sitting next to him as he lay on a bed. That’s when he noticed that he was, in fact, in a bed and in his pyjamas.

Tears welled up in his eyes as he stared at them. They were young, even Sirius. They didn’t look older than twenty or twenty one.

 _Of course_ , he thought to himself, _when Lily and James died._

He looked down and saw that his body was young as well. He didn’t know how, but he remembered that the scars on his arm matched his twenty-one-year-old self.


End file.
